Personal anecdote – my dad lives in a developing European county. Not Indonesia, but not Germany either. He had a couple of stents inserted in a non-emergency procedure. He went from his personal physician to cardiologist to surgery in less than four weeks. The total cost was close to $5K. He had to cover 10% of the total cost ($500) since he’s under 65 and it was not an emergency.
Had he needed an emergency brain surgery he would have died, but as an average person with a fairly common need he received treatment that is at least comparable to what’s offered in the US at fraction of the cost.
On the other hand, I had to wait more than four weeks to be seen by a sports medicine specialist about a lingering injury. It took him less than 5 minutes to interpret an x-ray, tell me an equivalent of ‘it is what it is, suck it up, come back in two months if it still hurts’. My out of pocket was $80 on top of my $500/month insurance.
